Project Description

Introduction

Our public-sector client works in the blue light industry and is responsible for law enforcement in a major UK city. As part of their duty to maintain public safety they extensively use video surveillance from thousands of CCTV cameras.

As part of a comprehensive programme to modernise its command, control, communication and information systems, our client required a Digital Video Recording System (DVRS) which would allow them to record, search, retrieve and export footage from any of the thousands of CCTV cameras in the city.

The DVRS has enhanced the speed of our client’s operations, allowing them to instantly provide evidential information for analysis.

The Requirement

Our client required a continuous 24x7x365 digital recording system with the capacity to record over 800 channels across multiple sites. The system also had to integrate with their new command and control system. Initially, there were three main areas of use:

Public order events – record video from major planned events such as carnivals, marathons, ceremonial events and state visits.

Ad hoc operational use – allow police officers and 999 dispatchers to record video from cameras during incidents they are handling.

Post-event analysis – the ability to mass export video for later offline review and evidence gathering following major incidents.

The Solution

The Cinos team implemented an enterprise class digital video recording solution from Verint. The solution is based on IP video encoding and decoding and is designed to streamline video security operations; helping our client to rapidly make sense out of the vast volumes of video that they capture. The system is controlled via a powerful easy-to-use video management platform and is fully modular; allowing our client to expand the system if required.

Running in 8 sites across a wide area network (WAN), the system takes composite video feeds and encodes those signals for network transport and storage. Recorded video is stored on a storage area network (SAN) with around 200 Terabytes of storage capacity. The WAN is based around Cisco enterprise class switches with built in traffic rerouting and redundancy features.

The Verint software provides an easy to use PC based application which allows operators to search, retrieve, review and export recorded video and screenshots. The application can also be used to view live video. Robot DVD burners from Rimage are used for the export of video. The units burn footage to DVD and automatically print labels for evidential purposes. Operators can access video from any location on the network. A key feature of the Verint software is the ability to export video in bulk for later offline analysis. This feature is used when video is to be held for longer than 30 days.

Inputs to the DVRS are all composite video from analogue video matrices local to each site. Video inputs are recorded twice using video distribution amplifiers (VDA) to duplicate the incoming feed. The first feed is recorded at full frame rate 25 fps and is retained online for 7 days while the duplicated feed is recorded at 6.25 fps and retained for 31 days. The same footage is stored at two different locations on the network to provide resilience and redundancy.

Cinos open Ireland office to mitigate Brexit uncertainty.

Cinos achieves SafeContractor Accreditation

We are a leading audio visual integrator specialising in the delivery and maintenance of intelligent video solutions and services to a global marketplace

Founded in 2007 Cinos have established a reputation for delivering the highest levels of quality, service and support. Our continued expansion with regional offices in Europe, North America and Asia allows us to deliver the same high standards globally that we have built our reputation on.